Painted Faces & Printed Music: Women and Music in the Paintings of Bartolomeo Veneto and Sebastiano Florigerio

The cultural views surrounding musical performances by women rapidly changed during the sixteenth century. The ideal of the preceding century advised ladies of the court to avoid displaying the frivolous and sinful ways of music-making, but the new notion of the female courtier praised women for performing music, for it could only serve to enhance their beauty and virtue. These two opposing concepts can be seen simultaneously in treatises, correspondences, and artwork of this era. Artists’ depictions of courtesans included music to convey what was considered sensual and immoral; yet other works displayed music instruments as representations of women’s nobility and grace. Through an analysis of iconography within Bartolomeo Veneto’s Lady Playing a Lute and Sebastiano Florigerio’s Music Lesson, this research explores the representation of gender through music in Italian paintings of the sixteenth century